Beneath the iron firmament, two massive boulders rumbled past, casting mottled shadows over the young man that rippled across his robes. He bent to evade an overhead rail then strode toward Jiang Kui.
Jiang Kui scoffed lightly. “Zhu Zian, we haven’t yet settled the last debt between us.”
Zhu Zian wore a loose black changshan robe belted at the waist with a silver sword. A plain white mandarin collar wrapped snugly about his neck, obscuring his figure. Gone was the white ceramic opera mask from before, replaced by a pale scholar’s mask subtly outlined with inked laughter lines at the mouth corners.
Hearing her retort, he chuckled but didn’t reply, only meandering closer between rail tracks until standing before Jiang Kui. Then abruptly he raised a hand to cover her mouth.
“What are you feeding me?” A tiny pellet slipped onto her tongue.
“Candy,” Zhu Zian casually replied.
Jiang Kui pushed the pellet against her tongue and gently bit down. “It’s bitter.”
Zhu Zian laughed while feeding the passed out pair. “That’s just the outer sugar coating. If you swallow it whole, it’ll be sweet.”
Jiang Kui silently gulped it down. The layer of frosted sugar melted sweetly on her tongue and his palm had left a lingering touch of coolness against her lips. She huffed heavily in response.
After the pill, Jiang Kui circulated her inner energy, forcing out the remaining traces of poison from her system. She had noticed the tomb’s stale air was toxic even before entering the spirit way yet said nothing to avoid frightening the other two. Zhu Zian’s timely antidote meant they hadn’t inhaled too much miasma.
“Why are you here?” Jiang Kui opened her eyes after completing her breathing exercise.
“To rescue you,” Zhu Zian breezily quipped.
“Spare me your wild tales,” Jiang Kui said, striding over to grab his collar for interrogation.
“Alright Miss Jiang, no sudden moves! Let me explain,” Zhu Zian raised both hands in surrender. “Weren’t you asking me to investigate someone in the palace? I’m just helping you out.”
A thought struck Jiang Kui. “Does this tomb relate to my plunge into the waters?”
Zhu Zian shook his head. “Unrelated. I merely happened to wander in and brought you out on a whim.”
Disbelieving, Jiang Kui didn’t press further, only listening to Zhu Zian continue, “You must have noticed this entire underground palace was constructed based on the principles of Yin-Yang divinatory arts. From the spirit way down mirrors a descent from the mortal realm to the underworld before ascending to the heavenly realms.”
Zhu Zian pointed overhead. “This tomb is a huge Xuantian Bagua Formation, symbolizing the path to paradise.”
Jiang Kui didn’t understand any of this. “How do we break the formation and escape?”
“Follow my lead,” Zhu Zian replied. “Left three paces, right four paces, advance ten steps, retreat six paces…”
Following his commands, Jiang Kui helplessly circled back to her original spot before seeing Zhu Zian had calmly strode several dozen paces to stand beneath the apex of the dome. He then pointed at the two still passed out behind Jiang Kui. “Carry them out of the formation’s boundaries.”
“Why don’t you carry them yourself?” Jiang Kui was sorely tempted to punch him. “What was all that about earlier?”
“Oh right, just teasing you a bit.” Seeing her expression, Zhu Zian chuckled. “Miss Jiang, with your thousand-catty strength compared to my scholarly constitution, how could I possibly move two adults? I was testing our coordination in case you couldn’t follow my instructions later when breaking the formation.”
Jiang Kui mumbled almost inaudibly, “Five hundred catties.”
Zhu Zian blinked. “Come again?”
Even more softly, “…Five hundred catty strength.”
Still not comprehending, Zhu Zian didn’t ask as she turned and lugged the two limp bodies to rest several paces beyond the enormous diagram’s boundaries, gently setting them down. Zhu Zian’s voice rang out, “Left three—”
He led seriously now as Jiang Kui listened closely, threading her way amidst the rumbling boulders according to his quickening tempo, evading all the triggered traps. Sometimes, tumbling rocks barely grazed her cheek in passing.
Each time she rocketed up to smash the mechanisms deactivating the engravings in each corner, Zhu Zian clapped once. Their gazes locked fleetingly through the blazing flames, cloth fluttering, eyes meeting.
“Splendid teamwork.” Zhu Zian concluded with a final clap.
As the last mechanism sealed, the tomb’s rumblings and gears ground to a shuddering halt. Crisp applause broke the silence as the two peered through the settling debris.
Zhu Zian smiled. “Did you like my commands, Miss Jiang?”
Jiang Kui huffed, “Only someone of my caliber could keep up with your tempo.”
“Quite right.” Zhu Zian agreeably chuckled again.
The flames simultaneously dimmed as a deep thrumming resonated from all around, rebounding off the walls like incoming tides.
The vibrations came from the very walls, floor, and ceiling visibly quaking, setting adrift the formerly still mega-boulders, gravitating unstoppably toward each other.
Then with awful groans, jagged fissures split the starry firmament! The cracks branched through the celestial mansions, converging above the dark void at the silver center!
The Silver Heart!
As the dome ruptured, an enormous boulder plunged straight toward the figure below that vital focal node!
“Zhu Zian!” Jiang Kui shouted his name.
“Don’t move!” Zhu Zian yelled back at Jiang Kui. “Stay where you are!”
“You idiot, you’re going to die! Run!” Jiang Kui roared.
But Zhu Zian no longer had time to flee. The massive rock’s shadow could blanket a huge area and with his meager skills, there was no escaping in time.
He was still shouting at Jiang Kui but she couldn’t make it out over the raging winds stirred up by the free-falling meteor, the air itself trembling under the accompanying cacophonous din.
Jiang Kui gritted her teeth—
—and hurtled through the swirling gravel and debris toward the eye of the storm, desperate to reach the figure at its center.
Her trailing sleeves and hair whipped wildly behind as she dashed swifter than a lightning bolt. In a flash she appeared before Zhu Zian, her outstretched hand grabbing his robes when his grip suddenly vised her wrist and wrenched her into his embrace. She crashed into his chest, her forehead heavily thudding against Zhu Zian’s shoulder.
A wisp of cool plum blossoms teased her nose as a voice gently exhaled by her ear, “Don’t move.”
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